A Texas Tech University paleontologist suggests that meteorite impacts during Earth’s early history may have played a pivotal role in the origin of life on the planet.

It has baffled humans for millennia: How did life begin on planet Earth? Now, research from a Texas Tech University paleontologist suggests it may have rained from the skies and started in the bowels of hell.

Sankar Chatterjee, Horn Professor of Geosciences and curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University, believes he has found the answer by connecting theories on chemical evolution with evidence related to our planet’s early geology.